Lena examined the tan, strong hand that held her own. She absently played with the long, lithe fingers as she turned her girlfriends hand this way and that. Examining it from all angles.

Unlike a human hand, there seemed to be less texture to her skin. Less pores, less wrinkles, less defined palmar flexion creases and less variation in skin tone. How Lena never noticed Kara was an alien, just from her hands, she will never know. Her hands are inhumanely smooth and her skin, while not soft in the traditional sense, holds a silky quality that defies human tactile response.

Flipping her hand, Lena examines the perfect nails. Kara's nail beds are perfectly squared off but her nails look smaller than a humans and more uniform in size across all of her fingers. The nails themselves look thinner than a humans and as Lena presses on them she sees no change in colour or cuticle blood flow. How odd.

The question pops into Lena's head before she can stop it, "Kara, why do your nails look different?"

Lena feels herself blush at having blurted the question out, but she recovers quickly. Her curious green eyes meet indulgent blue orbs which seem to laugh and smile at her all at once.
.

Kara hums softly and her eyes flicker back to the Disney movie that had failed to hold Lena's attention. The story of a chinese warrior had nothing on absently examining her girlfriend.

Kara smiles softly, "Kryptonian nails grow much, much slower than human nails. If it weren't for the yellow sun they would likely be constantly breaking too. On Krypton we used a special gel to harden them because our forced evolution was slowly causing them to become a redundant characteristic. Like humanity, they are a remnant of a more primitive ancestor that had use for claws and nails. Kryptonians, as an older species and from using the matrix, had slowly been breeding them out as an adapted characteristic. Our nails had become smaller, more uniform, thinner and grew more slowly. I had even heard of cases of Kryptonians being born without nails or with even smaller ones than I have. I am just grateful the matrix and my House didn't push my evolution that far, it would have been a pain gluing false nails onto my fingers to blend in here with humanity."

Lena nods along as Kara explains. So many aspects of Kryptonian anatomy look similar to humanity that on casual inspection and in daily life, no one realises how different Kara is. Yet, there seems to be a thousand little tells, and Lena is loving learning each and every one.

As Lena lifts Kara's hands to examine the nails in question, she lightly kisses the tips of her girlfriends fingers.

"I love your alien nails," Lena murmers into Kara's hand.

This has become a ritual of sorts. Lena uncovering small details and differences about Kara and loving her all the more for them.

Kara snorts and with a deep blush she retorts in a mischieviou voice, " oh yes girlfriend of mine, I wonder why you love my short, slow growing nails?"

Lena blushes violently at the innuendo. Her cheeks turn from ghostly white to pale pink before her mind recovers enough to sarcastically mutter, " Yes, how convenient my female, pansexual, Alien lover has naturally short nails."

Kara rolls her eyes at Lena and returns her attention to the film.

Lena's retort replays in her own mind and she can't help the question that it invariably conjures, "Hey Kara, how do you cut your nails?"

Lena knows intellectually that every part of Kara is stronger and tougher. One of superman's hairs is suspended in Metropolis museum, holding up a 1 tonne weight. Lena can only imagine what these delicate little nails on Kara's hands could do. A human can scratch flesh with their nails, but Kara could surely shred steel. It is with that thought that Lena is once again immensely greatful for Kara's conscientious and gentle treatment of Lena during their love making and for the fact she appears to have alienly short nails.

Kara huffs, "I see I won't get any peace to watch the end of Mulan again until your curiosity is sated?"

Kara cocks a brow in mock acusation, and Lena ducks her head slightly abashed.

Kara reaches across with her free hand to cup Lena's face in a gentle and reassuring gesture. Her thumb tenderly caressing the faintly blushing cheek.

"Hey, it's fine. I love your curiosity," Kara reassures.

Lena raises her eyes to watch Kara hopefully and with renewed curiosity.

Kara sighs, "Well, when I first arrived on earth I didn't really think about it until my nails had grown a bit. About a year and a half after I got here. Like Kal-El, when his powers started manifesting in his early teens, I did what many teenagers do: I bit my nails. Our teeth are strong enough, and we have enough strength to bite our own nails off. Needless to say, that was a messy affair and was rather unsightly. When I was 16 and getting a bit more concerned about silly things like human vanity I plucked up the courage to ask Kal for help. It turned out that he had designed a remedy himself after he discovered the Fortress. He had the Kal-ex fashion nail clippers with a thin green kryptonite coating on the edges."

"What!?" Lena gasped in horror. Her mind waring between being angry at Clark for again failing to think of Kara's needs in as simple a way as cutting her nails before she asked him about it, and being horrified that he would give her a Kryptonite cutting implement as a solution.

Kara smiles and pats her knee reasurribgly, "shh, calm down. It is a very thin coating. Nowhere near enough Kryptonite to hurt me or be usable in any way if it fell into the wrong hands, but just enough to cut through my nails"

Lena sighs in relief.

"Oh, ok. I suppose that makes sense. I had never really considered how difficult something as mundane as cutting your nails would be Kara."

Kara shrugged easily, "It is just part of life now here on earth. Now, can we finish Mulan?"

Lena rolled her eyes and snuggled closer to her girlfriend . Her hand still cradled in her pale hands and being absently toyed with.